


the things that befall cavaliers

by ThatAloneOne



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Angst, F/F, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:08:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26366215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatAloneOne/pseuds/ThatAloneOne
Summary: “In recognition of the circumstances,” Harrow said, which was certainly one way of refusing to address any of this, “I will be taking Gideon Nav as my cavalier.”Harrow and Gideon from the end of Gideon are blasted back to the beginning of the book.
Relationships: Gideon Nav/Harrowhark Nonagesimus
Comments: 34
Kudos: 189





	the things that befall cavaliers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Queerantine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Queerantine/gifts).



> Infodumping is hard. The plot of this is "I dropped Harrow and Gideon from the end of Gideon when they were both down for the count back into the beginning". It's angst. You're welcome.
> 
> Queerantine is a very good beta even if they make me write more because handwaving things in the middle is bad or _whatever_ :(

It made sense that the afterlife was the Ninth but that didn’t mean Gideon wasn’t peeved about it.

There had been a blink between… that, and now. A blink, and Gideon was back in Drearburh, listing in the front row with her head aching and Crux staring daggers at her like he thought he could give her a headache with the power of his tiny brain. Harrow stood at the apse with the same aggrieved look she always had in the sanctuary, like she was about to read off a list of all the crimes Gideon had committed and it was going to make her day.

But then-

Harrow faltered, the precious real paper falling from her frozen fingers. She was looking at Gideon like she was something impossible and precious and wanted. “ _Gideon_ ,” Harrow breathed.

“Huh?” said Gideon, who was perhaps not operating at full capacity.

The nuns prayed a disapproving backing track to Harrow’s stumbling footsteps. She looked barely alive and barely upright, her face blanched white under her paint. “Gideon,” Harrow said again, and both of them were fumbling with inexperience, trying to clutch each other close in desperation. Harrow’s too-warm hand slipped between the layers of Gideon’s robe to press at the bones guarding her heart. Harrow’s forehead was pressed to hers, mindless of the thick white paint now smearing onto Gideon. Vaguely, Gideon considered the kind of scene they were making, but it was hard to care with Harrow in her arms.

“My lady,” Aiglamene said, summoning all the stiff propriety Harrow had abandoned. Through Harrow’s hair, Gideon could see Aiglamene’s hand had gone to her sword. She almost felt offended; protecting Harrow with a sword was _her_ job. 

Harrow’s hands spasmed on Gideon’s robes for a split second before she let Gideon go and stepped back. Her breath was still coming fast, her lips slightly parted and her paint smeared ever-so-slightly. She looked a wreck. If not for the dusting of luminescence sticking to the trails of blood under her nose — a Ninth specialty — Gideon could have mistaken this for any of the handful of moments near the end where Harrow had finally given up.

She would have said that thought was like being stabbed in the heart, but now she knew for a fact what being stabbed in the heart felt like and it was a metaphor-ruining sort of different experience. Instead, Gideon said: “We can- you can figure this out later.”

Harrow nodded, then plucked the letter from the floor as daintily as if this was all part of her presentation. It would have been more convincing if the paper wasn’t turning into a crumpled mess under her too-tight grip. Harrow raised her eyes to Gideon instead and, skipping a generous portion of the letter, declared to the room: “His Celestial Kindliness, the First Reborn, begs this house to honour its love for the Creator, as set in the contract of tenderness made on the day of the Resurrection, and humbly asks for the first fruits of your household… Myself, and my cavalier.”

Sister Glaurica set at wailing immediately, which Harrow either didn’t seem to notice, or didn’t bother dignifying with a response. “In recognition of the circumstances,” Harrow said, which was certainly  _ one  _ way of refusing to address any of this, “I will be taking Gideon Nav as my cavalier.”

Sister Glaurica paused, and Gideon turned in time to see her choking on a complaint of how her dearest and only joy of a son was being unfairly demoted. Ortus, beside her, looked both baffled and grateful. The same adept had a heart attack, but in a new and exciting way. 

Looking sick, Harrow said: “I know the things that befall cavaliers. Be grateful I have spared him his fate.”

“Reverend Daughter,” Crux grated. It was the first time he had ever said it disrespectfully, and it looked like it hurt. 

Harrow only had eyes for Gideon. “Let us pray,” she said. 

Gideon’s skin felt too hot and tight, like she was melting away to the bones under Harrow’s gaze. Harrow was ignoring everyone and everything save for Gideon. Even her prayer was different, her piety replaced with impatience. Gideon was burning too much to even pretend at prayer. At _let it be so_ she was out of her seat and elbowing aside the stream of skeletons. This time, she couldn’t care less about the blocked exits. 

At some point, Crux had vanished to go carve his disapproval into a rock or whatever he got up to when he wasn’t hovering, but Aiglamene lingered, looking between Harrow and Gideon with exhausted suspicion.

“Not to second-guess you, Reverend Daughter,” she said, and Gideon thought drearily of Aiglamene’s rapier lecture, but Harrow just shook her head at Aiglamene and launched herself at Gideon again.

“Leave us,” Harrow commanded into the crook of Gideon’s neck. At least one of them was shaking, or else the Ninth was having an unexpected earthquake ahead of schedule. Gideon was too alive to care.

* * *

Sextus,

If you want Dulcinea to make it to the First House you have to get her and her cavalier away from the Seventh. One of the Lyctors is going to try and impersonate her, and if you want to meet the love of your life  _ instead  _ of Cytherea the First, you’d better step on it.

You have no reason to trust this letter, but I hope you care enough about your friend to go along with it anyway. If the appeal to your better nature doesn’t work, what about this: you crunched the numbers and now your cavalier uses two curved blades. I agree, it has much wider use than a rapier. You think siphoning is bad manners. Dulcinea doesn’t like tea but she does like being alive, I’d guess. Trust that if we know this much, we know more. Save her, or live with the consequences.

A future friend

P.S. Did you know that if you put the first three letters of your last name with the first three letters of your first name, you get ‘Sex Pal’?

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this just before I read Harrow — as in, I posted this five minutes before opening Harrow to read it — so it doesn't have any info from Harrow in it. I have so much Harrow information in my brain now though. Whoa.
> 
> Here's a good Gideon song: [Slow Fade to Black](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pM0czu9Cshw).
> 
> This didn't make it in but it cracks me up:
>
>> “Dulcinea,” Gideon blurted.
>> 
>> Harrow looked ready to throw this second chance out the window and kill Gideon herself. “If you say _one_ thing about that-”
>> 
>> “No, the _**real Dulcinea**_. She’s still alive. Her and her cavalier, we have to-”


End file.
